SURVEYS will be undertaken to find out how a busy road in Hersham could be made safer.

Residents in the Burwood Road area submitted the petition in November last year at a local committee meeting, which was signed by 190 people.

The group wants traffic calming to be put in place in Burwood Road, which they believe is dangerous.

The petition highlighted safety concerns generally, and included speed of vehicles, the lack of 30mph reminder signs, traffic calming, and crossing points on Burwood Road, Hersham.

The petition requests a 20mph zone encompassing Molesey Road from Thrupps Lane to Queens Road, and extended into Burwood Road, to its junction with Green Lane, and to include Pleasant Place.

More signs are requested in the remaining existing 30mph section, along with painted speed roundels on the carriageway, and a zebra crossing in the vicinity of the school and church.

Burwood Road resident Colin Flexman, who helped put together the petition, said: “They are looking to expand Burhill School to twice the size over the coming months and there is no safe crossing planned. We also have Lilliput Nursery.

“It’s a major problem. Burwood Road is a very busy cut-through of the M25 and traffic is heavy.

“The council has put in a lot of effort into a number of roads. But this is the longest straight road in Elmbridge and they have not done anything to it since we moved here in 1989.”

He said he was pleased with a discussion held at a local committee meeting on Monday, where councillors agreed that a feasibility study should go ahead in the road to find out the most appropriate solution.

Hersham county councillor Margaret Hicks agreed to spend £5,000 of her councillor’s allocation on the study.

She said: “This will be good news for the families who walk their children to school as the traffic needs to be calmed.”

According to the Department for Transport 20mph limits should not be implemented on roads with a ‘strategic function or main traffic route’ and should be ‘generally self enforcing’.

In 2004/5 the county council did work to improve the ‘poor accident history’ of the junction of Queens Road and Burwood Road by putting in a mini-roundabout, widening and resurfacing the pavement, changing the street lighting, adding traffic islands and improving the layout of parking bays at the Pleasant Place junction.

An officers report to local committee suggested introducing a one-way system at the Faulkners Road junction which it said had ‘very restricted sightlines’ and where an accident occurred last April.

It went on to say ‘it may be possible’ to put a zebra crossing ‘in the vicinity’ of the school.